The Brown Note

Is Australia's most infamous workplace incident over, or is it about to go supernova and finally ensure Brittany's employer at the time, the actual government, is finally held to account. Despite maintaining a scarcely believable and completely ludicrous position, that no senior person in the previous Liberal government, either knew about the allegations of rape against a staff member in their own offices or covered it up to win an election, the Liberals have so far got away scot-free. Now, a new compensation case from Higgins brings two pivotal parts of this equation, ex-senators, Linda Reynolds and Michaelia Cash into play. No longer having the protection - including financial - of being in office, will they finally throw our beloved ex-prime minister, Scott Morrision, under a bus, by proclaiming they were only obeying orders? Please Brittany, do not settle this out of court.

Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, is the Time magazine person of the year - rightly so as they base it on the person who overall has had the most impact on the year. It's also bloody funny as I know damn well the tweeting ego, Elon Musk, would've thought it should be him. But in one of my infrequent series of pieces that will make no friends - has he been GOOD for Ukraine or the Ukrainian people? In my opinion, no.

A double whammy of hypocrisy actually. As the biggest protests in decades greet the latest round of lock-downs in China, the Western world, (particularly my people on the left) who have spent the last few years attacking lock-down protestors, now regard them as freedom fighting heroes. And whilst mass public street protests have been common place in the West in recent years, particularly in America, all the way up to an actual attempt to overthrow the government, if they happen in Iran, Russia or China, it's time for regime change.

After a two year wait to get to trial, followed by a mistrial due to the actions of a Juror, the most controversial case and political story in modern Australian history would seem to be at an end - with Brittany in hospital for mental health reasons, the prosecutor has decided not proceed with another trial, saying her life is in danger and more important. Devastating stuff and now no one who in all likelihood helped cover this low point in Australian politics up, to win an election and then lied about it for two years, will ever beheld accountable, including ex-prime minister Scott Morrison. Our system in dealing with sexual assault cases is broken, with re-traumatising alleged victims seemingly built into the process, always for the benefit of the accused - in this case to an unbearable degree. The worst part of this country will always treat her as a villain but I and the best half of this country stand with Brittany Higgins for her unimaginable strength of character, integrity and bravery.

FIFA should be custodians of the world's biggest sport's most popular showcase, instead they've descended into such corrupt disrepute they need to be replaced. We all know the awarding the cup to Qatar was mired in bribery, lying and officials enriching themselves, but how could it not be when every other modern World Cup stinks to high heaven too. An overview of the whole debacle and why Qatar would even want to spend a hundred billion dollars plus to host it in the first place.

The Australian state of Victoria just held a long heralded election, which, if you listened to ANY Australian news - from TV to radio to print media - was a terrifyingly close referendum on the most hated man in the country, Premier Dan Andrews and his COVID dictatorship. It was NEVER close, not for one second, yet wall to wall media and polling said it was on a knife edge throughout. Dan walked it with almost the same vote he got four years ago, despite the two years of the most toxic and one sided media attack campaign in Australian political history. The shining light is that this country completely ignored the media and in particular the Murdoch press - who now wield the influence of a wet lettuce leaf. #IStandWithDan

The UK's latest Tory meltdown is again both hysterically funny and maddeningly awful, especially when you think it was a personal choice to choose Brexit and Boris Johnson, rather than Jeremy Corbyn and have the best UK leader with the best policies of my lifetime. He is certainly looking good now. But not only did the right destroy him but so did the "Left" leaning Guardian Newspaper, who spent multiple years trying to take him down, despite knowing that was supporting current dog bucket.

Three major factors have contributed to the downfall of Australia's global city. One - John Howard's economic policies destroyed the standard of living and the housing market to the extent even an average job, once able to BUY a three-bed home, will now struggle to rent a one bed flat. Two - the infiltration of puritanical right wing (often religious) people in politics and the police have turned the place into a rule infested and globally mocked killjoy. Three - the biggest selling point was the environment, the endless blue skies, warmth, beaches and ocean... climate change has killed that dead, as we head into our third washed out summer IN A ROW, we must acknowledge we now have wet and dry seasons as the tropics move ever further south. What is the point in Sydney any more?

God I would love and Australia where the news media held right wing politicians even ten percent as accountable as the left, who are hounded out of office for any transgression immediately, or where even men in office fell on their swords half as much as women. Make no bones about it, they were gunning for Greens party Senator, Lidia Thorpe from day one - because she is independent, loud, brown, unapologetic and a woman. Meanwhile the behavior accepted from the right of politics is astonishing.

A delightfully happy follow up to the previous piece a couple of months back, about how we are way past being able to stop the severe impacts of climate change - which are well under way - and that the most extreme forecasting barely covers how bad the next decade will be. Just checking in to see if things have gotten better. Oh dear.